In a shop the other day we were surprised by a surcharge of over 2% of an everyday purchase. We know a bit about EFTPOS fees and know for sure that the business would not be paying 2% for EFTPOS fees. Their actual EFTPOS costs would be around 1%, maybe a little less.
They are using software though that bundles payments with the software in a way that gives the software company more revenue. We suspect it is the cost of the POS software platform that is included in what they say is an EFTPOS surcharge. If this is the case, it’s something the ACCC may be interested in.
The ACCC website offers details:
Costs that businesses can include
The Reserve Bank of Australia sets out the costs that businesses can include when determining their reasonable costs of accepting payment types.
Before introducing a payment surcharge, businesses should read our Payment surcharges guide and the Reserve Bank of Australia guidance material. Consumers may also wish to read these guides for further information about how excessive payment surcharges are calculated.
Business costs of accepting payments
Businesses receive monthly and annual statements from their bank or payment facilitator. These should include the business’s average percentage cost of accepting each payment type. This figure will generally include service fees, costs for card terminal rental and maintenance. It may also include other fees the bank or payment facilitator passes on to the business for processing card transactions.
Businesses should contact their bank or payment facilitator, or the Reserve Bank of Australia, if there are issues obtaining these statements.
Reading through this and going to the various links, we do not think a retail business can surcharge their shoppers the platform costs, costs associated with the POS software itself. What we are wondering of course is whether the overseas POS software companies are facilitating behaviour that may be open to challenge through the ACCC. While we don’t know, back at the shop we visited with the high surcharge we do wonder if that is their case in that business. It an explanation we can think of.
If you have encountered an excessing EFTPOS surcharge you can make a report to the ACCC.
Retailers using our Tower Systems POS software can use whatever payments platform they choose. We directly integrate with many. We have also negotiated competitive rates for retailers interested in leveraging the power of our community of retailers, although they are not as good as the rates some of Australia’s biggest retailers have.
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